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May 9, 2008 - 09:14 PM |
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Suddenly, disaster--?! |
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Shortly after 9PM last night, my roommate turned on the television here with the hopes of watching whatever incarnation of CSI is broadcast on Thursday nights. Dismay! Insult! Misfortune! CSI whichever was not on television at the time, as a local news station was taking another opportunity to dramatize severe weather likely in the hope of a ratings boost of some kind. Their language is sometimes akin to "HEY, TELLING THEM THAT THIS CELL HERE CONTAINS FLYING PIGS MIGHT GET THEM TO SIT HERE LONG ENOUGH THAT THEY'LL MEMORIZE ALL OF OUR ADVERTISEMENTS AND THEN WE'LL BE RICH AHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAH LET'S TAKE OVER THE WORLD; THE WORLD I SAY! GET MOVING AHAHAHAHAHA. BRING OUT THE WHIPS AND BONDAGE COLLARS IT'S TIME TO CELEBRATE." A ratings boost is only a guess. I don't know why they talk about severe weather in this manner, but increased arbitrary, assumed prestige seems like a decent possibility. After the weatherman got done telling us that there were four, you can count them on one hand, four tornado warnings for surrounding counties, my roommate turned the television off, content in knowing that his show wouldn't be on. Actually, I bet he was pissed that CSI wasn't on, but my roommate has never been known for expression of any distinct emotion; most of the time that I look over at him in his chair, he looks angry at something. Asking him if he's angry, though, usually gets an instant response of "no, not really," usually followed by another incarnation of the quick "I know I look angry, but I really have a CALMED HEART" discussion.
The look on his face is quite perplexing. Yes, generally, he appears angered at something even if he isn't actually enraged in the slightest, but I always like to ascribe some more dramatic language to his consternation. "Ah, look, it's the troubled computer-user! Look at how he suffers amid the stresses of posting to internet forums! He is like the Poor, trapped in his habitat by his own mawkishness!" Something about associating my roommate with either feigned or sickening sentimentality has always been interesting to me if I happen to notice that he's sitting in his computer chair. Maybe I feel sorry for him. I guess we don't share as many interests as it might seem at first.
A couple hours after we had discovered that there's tarnados afoot, about 11:45PM to be more precise, I decided I was going to get to bed a bit earlier than usual. I had an exam today at noon, so I planned on waking significantly earlier than I might normally in order that I could look over my endless notebook before that exam. This brilliantly conceived plan was quickly cut short. Excitement of a related but brand new sort was about to knock on my door! This floor's "community advisor" was knocking on all the doors on this hallway to alert people to a brand new danger; a tornado warning had been issued for Guilford County! Sacrebleu! The warning was a little ineffectual in the end, honestly--our beloved CA told us that we "might have to go down to the basement [soon]" in order that our lives wouldn't be totally forefeit to the impending evil, but she did not mention any specific plans to that end. All we were told is "hey, you might want to move soon." LEADERSHIP IN ACTION. Had she been watching the news more attentively, she would've enlightened herself to the fact that tornadic activity was confined to the northern and southern extremes of the county. This university's campus is, thankfully in this instance, located less than a mile from the center of Greensboro, NC. In many other instances, it's a little bit troubling to be here; we're surrounded by dilapidation in the form of a ghetto of immense magnitude. I don't know if my family is afraid of black people or what, but they always seem to be terrified when I call them before I go jogging through the evident heartland of crime. "OH, watch out! You know, all someone has to do is decide that they want to shoot you and you're dead! ...or shot! Shot with a bullet! A bullet made out of lead! Lead that they probably stole!" That's not the only curious element of our rather compact campus. As a land-locked university near the heart of a city, parking is also awful here or so everyone says, though considering how packed the parking decks always seem to be, I have plenty of reason to believe them. Luckily, I can't experience that hell, because I don't own a car! Hooray, one instance in which it's actually more convenient not to possess a vehicle! Awesome! I'm on my way to greatness now!
After getting a borderline hilarious warning from our fearless resident leadership, I knew I couldn't sleep with such commotion outside our backwards-locking door. What if a tornado struck this building? I might be hit with something heavy and spend the rest of my life in a coma! Well, yes, actually, that could happen if a tornado struck this building, but I'm a college-aged male! Am I not supposed to approach every mildly dangerous situation with an attitude of testosterone-fueled reliance in my newly-discovered invincibility? Fucking yes! COME ON, TORNADO, ALL THE SHRAPNEL YOU CAN CREATE WILL SHATTER ON MY BODY. I wish I had the energy for that kind of exuberance last night; it was my roommate who was practically begging for a tornado to rip through the university's campus, forcing me to wish for the same but for a very different reason. I began to make the same plea with the specific hope that my roommate might be pinned to a wall by debris in order that I could give him what may be the most epic "I told you so" of his life.
Dissapointingly, after that great sadistic wish, destruction did not visit our dormitory last night, but death almost visited us. I almost died in laughter at the local television meteorologists' extensive coverage of the carnage. We turned the television on again around the time that we hosted foreboding guests at our door, and I became completely fixated on the thing for the next hour or so. The weather, the grave situation at hand was reported with extreme attention to detail. "We have a confirmed report of a flattened structure from the emergency manager of Randolph County." Oh, that comment was priceless. I instantly responded, "Flattened structure... A dog house, perhaps? A gazebo?" They much less reported than they sensationalized--at one point, one of the two meteorologists reporting for the local CBS station began a comment with a warning. "Now, we don't want to frighten anyone." he said as he stepped toward the regional Doppler radar map. "I don't want to scare anyone, but this cell here is showing a signature very similar to that of an F5 tornado that ripped through Greensboro a few years ago." He did recognize his own hyperbole at the end of that statement by noting "I can't be certain about that, though..." Though, I respect both he and the other meteorologist in the studio at the time for the reason that they had both been reporting this enthralling drama for "four or five hours," interrupting more than a few prime-time shows; they even canceled the 11:00PM news broadcast on that station in favor of CONSTANT TORNADO COVERAGE.
Eventually I filled my humor quota for the day and went to bed, sometime around 1:00AM. In the morning, I quickly checked that news station's website to find out that there were even injuries from last night's storm! I would've never thought that severe storms might cause damage! I understand that the purpose of TV meteorologists in the event of severe weather is to alert the public to any potential danger, but I think they must be showing off their imaginative or exaggeratory skills in hope that the weather report remains the most dramatically interesting portion of the broadcast.
...and with that, I give up on writing this! IT WAS ACTUALLY A GREAT CHALLENGE FILLING THIS TEXT BOX WITH MY WORDS AFTER TODAY'S EXAM, although I typed the entire thing in Notepad before even opening Firefox to get here! Hi, I'm here now! I'll leave 
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